In Warcraft 2, the horde weren't the semi-reasonable chaotic neutral guys they are today, but instead more like the Tolkien orcs, or in the words of Geroge Thorogood - Bad to the Bone. Which makes the Alterac Uprising extremely hard to justify in any way. The point of these strips is to humanize those who made the pact with the horde, without justifying the act itself. With luck, I have succeeded to some extent, at least.

_____________________________________________________[A] Timna "Void"- "To let go of my past, but always remember." & "Spite grows in idle soldiers."[A] Victoriya Torosian - "Wha'cha got there?"[A] Ariandra Fox-Alence - "I remember I could not leave. No shackles were as terrifying as his stare upon me at that moment, like a coyote staring at its prey."[A] Aldaya "The Sculptor" Vindico - "Have the heart that I lost, child. Treat it and others well, as long as it beats, and even when it no longer does."

Silferdrake wrote:In Warcraft 2, the horde weren't the semi-reasonable chaotic neutral guys they are today, but instead more like the Tolkien orcs, or in the words of Geroge Thorogood - Bad to the Bone. Which makes the Alterac Uprising extremely hard to justify in any way. The point of these strips is to humanize those who made the pact with the horde, without justifying the act itself. With luck, I have succeeded to some extent, at least.

Eh? It was rather justifiable IMO. The orcs were more or less pure evil and relatively unstoppable. Alterac was the weakest human nation. They helped the Horde because they were afraid the Horde would win and believed they'd be wiped out if they resisted.

That's justifiable enough to me. It was still betrayal, but betrayal motivated out of fear and Perenolde's desire to save his kingdom from destruction.

"...in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself... In all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions."

Silferdrake wrote:In Warcraft 2, the horde weren't the semi-reasonable chaotic neutral guys they are today, but instead more like the Tolkien orcs, or in the words of Geroge Thorogood - Bad to the Bone. Which makes the Alterac Uprising extremely hard to justify in any way. The point of these strips is to humanize those who made the pact with the horde, without justifying the act itself. With luck, I have succeeded to some extent, at least.

Eh? It was rather justifiable IMO. The orcs were more or less pure evil and relatively unstoppable. Alterac was the weakest human nation. They helped the Horde because they were afraid the Horde would win and believed they'd be wiped out if they resisted.

That's justifiable enough to me. It was still betrayal, but betrayal motivated out of fear and Perenolde's desire to save his kingdom from destruction.

Perenolde started to help the horde long before things went south for the Alliance. He gave Doomhammer information about the High Elven movements even before the war had truly started (Of course, Warcraft 2 was a long time ago, things might have been retconned), I always viewed him as quite evil, in beyond the dark portal he more or less gives the Book of Mediev to the Horde (which ranks slightly above the Necronomicon on the danger scale) for the lolz. Every action we see him take is quite evil, and his backstory lets us know that he has ambitions to take the crown of Lordaeron for himself.

Of course, he didn't want to see Alterac burned to the ground by the horde, which (the way I chose to picture it) is how he swayed the other nobles and the people of Alterac to allow the Horde to pass through unhindered. The way I see it most of them didn't know about the other things (giving the Horde vital information, sending pirates to assassinate Uther Lighbringer, the Tyrs Hand uprising, Meatloaf thursday etc).

Silferdrake wrote:In Warcraft 2, the horde weren't the semi-reasonable chaotic neutral guys they are today, but instead more like the Tolkien orcs, or in the words of Geroge Thorogood - Bad to the Bone. Which makes the Alterac Uprising extremely hard to justify in any way. The point of these strips is to humanize those who made the pact with the horde, without justifying the act itself. With luck, I have succeeded to some extent, at least.

Eh? It was rather justifiable IMO. The orcs were more or less pure evil and relatively unstoppable. Alterac was the weakest human nation. They helped the Horde because they were afraid the Horde would win and believed they'd be wiped out if they resisted.

That's justifiable enough to me. It was still betrayal, but betrayal motivated out of fear and Perenolde's desire to save his kingdom from destruction.

Perenolde started to help the horde long before things went south for the Alliance. He gave Doomhammer information about the High Elven movements even before the war had truly started (Of course, Warcraft 2 was a long time ago, things might have been retconned), I always viewed him as quite evil, in beyond the dark portal he more or less gives the Book of Mediev to the Horde (which ranks slightly above the Necronomicon on the danger scale) for the lolz. Every action we see him take is quite evil, and his backstory lets us know that he has ambitions to take the crown of Lordaeron for himself.

Then that's a (silly) retcon from the novels. The manual for WCII specifically describes what I just said.

"Alterac is the weakest of the human nations and is only a minor contributor of troops and equipment to the Alliance. Although Lord Perenolde praises Lothar and Terenas for their ongoing efforts, he is beset by the fear that when the Horde comes, the Alliance will fail, and only the surrender of his forces and his sovereignty will save the lives of his subjects. Perenolde alone knows whether or not--when the final call to arms is sounded--Alterac will fight for its freedom alongside the other nations of the Alliance." - WarCraft II Manual

As you can see from that, it casts Alterac and Perenolde in a sympathetic light. He definitely was not gunning for the crown originally... he was in fact willing to give up his own power to see his people saved. That's the Alterac and Perenolde I prefer to remember. They only vilified him later because apparently you can't have sympathetic, good-hearted traitors. *sigh*

Also, this was the start of the Second War. Not the first. The Alliance banded together because of the fact that the Horde completely decimated Stormwind with great ease. It was very clear, even before the Second War started, that the orcs were a nigh-unstoppable opponent. That's the primary reason the Alliance was formed--even Gilneas saw it as a big enough threat to join, despite their staunch independence. So there's definitely reason for the weakest nation to have greatly feared the Horde despite the war not having started yet.

True, Blizzard is the boss when it comes to retconning. It's really rather hard to know what's cannon and what isn't when it comes to Warcraft.

I try to stay away from bigger lore-events in the comic to avoid messing things up, but when I deal with them I do not take them very seriously, though I can admit that "...extremely hard to justify in any way." was perhaps a bit harsh.

You have no idea how much I appreciate your comments and approval. I started this as something to do on my downtime almost a year ago, figured I'd do about 10 or so to amuse the people in my guild, but due to you guys I am now fast approaching 50. Truly, thank you all alot .

Sometimes you have to gamble, and sometimes you lose. This one took quite some time to make with heraldry to the Alteracian nobles and stuff like that. The two men in the last panel are, in case you are wondering, Lord Lothar and Uther Lightbringer, having just broken the Siege of Lordearon.

Last edited by Silferdrake on Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:25 pm; edited 1 time in total

_____________________________________________________[A] Timna "Void"- "To let go of my past, but always remember." & "Spite grows in idle soldiers."[A] Victoriya Torosian - "Wha'cha got there?"[A] Ariandra Fox-Alence - "I remember I could not leave. No shackles were as terrifying as his stare upon me at that moment, like a coyote staring at its prey."[A] Aldaya "The Sculptor" Vindico - "Have the heart that I lost, child. Treat it and others well, as long as it beats, and even when it no longer does."

_____________________________________________________[A] Timna "Void"- "To let go of my past, but always remember." & "Spite grows in idle soldiers."[A] Victoriya Torosian - "Wha'cha got there?"[A] Ariandra Fox-Alence - "I remember I could not leave. No shackles were as terrifying as his stare upon me at that moment, like a coyote staring at its prey."[A] Aldaya "The Sculptor" Vindico - "Have the heart that I lost, child. Treat it and others well, as long as it beats, and even when it no longer does."